peelosophy

I think everyone has a different recipe for what would constitute as a bad day.  Here’s mine:

3 Cups Interrupted Sleep

2 Tablespoons Mistakes (my own)

2 Cup Selfishness (my own)

3 Tablespoons of “Misbehaving” children

1 Teaspoon of the General Public

4 Tablespoon of Messy House

A dash of Lateness

Stir well until you can’t breathe or the twitch in your eye won’t stop, whichever happens first.

I started this post earlier today and recounted every single hard and ridiculous thing that happened today – but I just deleted it all.  It didn’t seem so bad in hindsight of now telling the story.  But it was bad, probably the most trying day in my entire career as a mother, but putting words to it didn’t do it justice so I stopped.  Have you been there?  For example, when I started to describe to John what had happened, I felt silly with some of the stuff I was describing that was SO HARD in the moment – I couldn’t even describe it. It’s crazy how emotions and lack of sleep can magnify EVERYTHING!

So right now, I’m thankful for God’s mercy to moms that He thought of naps and thankful that tomorrow is a new day.

What’s your recipe for a bad day?

on my new car.  Ugh.  Our neighbors rotted tree fell on it during the big storm last week – the storm where most of STL had to wake up perfectly sleeping children to go into the basement in the middle of the night.  Thankfully our neighbors are super cool and are going to take care of it for us.  Just mildly annoying.

It’s 9am on Wednesday.  An ordinary Wednesday in the middle of an ordinary week.  We have a day with no plans and I am fighting the urge to have an agenda lined up.  Whether that consists getting something done or planning something.  Both tasks I love to do and I find myself planning a lot when I have downtime like today.  You see,  I plan when I am uncomfortable with not moving.  I plan when I can’t handle the mundane.  I plan because I want to get over the slowness of a usual day and move on to something more exciting.  (I have have an old draft I need to post later that will really get a glimpse of my insane planning mind.)

I would say John hates how much I plan and look ahead.  He is very good at living in the now and resting.  I think my planning stress him out at times.

With the conviction of my obsessive planning, I worked on being present in the downtime we have today.  I lie when I tell myself that I am good about being in the moment.  I am not.  Especially with my boys, I’d rather watch them play or let them play with each other than to be fully engaged with them.  I do play with them, but it’s really challenging for me, I think of what’s next or what I need to do.

I keep coming back to questions like, where else do I really have to be?  What else do I really need to be doing? What is more important than right now? For instance, digging through a bizzillion Legos to find just the right piece? To me – honestly I can think of a lot of things, to Henry it was the most important thing right then.  It was showing him love to help him find the piece he needed and that’s what I really needed to be doing above all else.  So, coffee in my hand, we rocked out to an 80s station on Pandora and sifted through the tiny plastic pieces.  And it actually felt good, no need to plan, no where else I needed to be but just right here, right now at my kitchen counter.

…that whenever I offer JJ a suggestion, he replies with “You’re a genius.” That said coupled by George calling me “Awesome Nation” yesterday, which I think I have chalked up to encouragement from my sons.

…that the weather is fantastic.  I’ve seen people in shorts, car convertible tops down and people with a skip in their step.  For me, it’s like the part of a movie when you get a glimpse of hope that everything is going to be okay.  Winter is not eternal and the hope of Spring is in air. Whoo-hoo!

…the yummy recipes I’ve tried lately and have turned into favorites, like the Broiled Tilapia Parmesan and the Ham Tetrazzini.

…that my new car has yet to wear off it’s novelty and has made me actually want to go run errands – which I normally avoid at all costs.

…the pockets of time I’ve been finding to read and do stuff I’ve been procrastinating like patching the boy’s jeans.

…what I have been learning about community and encouragement through people, reading and just life right now.

I have an irrational fear of zombies. Yes zombies. I guess it was perpetuated by my love of zombie movies.  Think 28 Days Later, 28 weeks later, Dawn of the Dead, etc.  Then at some point in the last couple of years I started to have zombie nightmares.

There were variations of these dreams but they all had to do with how it went down when the zombies came…..John was always at work and I would be struggling to get all the kids and two dogs into the car.  This was always the longest part of the dream because no one was listening to me (same in real life)  and I was under the gun because I could see the staggering shadows of the zombies coming down our lane.  Then, there would be times that I would have forgotten something we need at the house and had to go back which is never a good idea in a zombie movie.  We would get away alright, nobody was eaten and “turned” thankfully, but I would be scared and have no idea where to take our family and how I would find John.

After the last time I awoke scared from a nightmare (over a year ago) , John comforted me and told me about the plan for when the zombies come.  He simply said that when the zombies come, the car will be working, have a full tank of gas, and the children and dogs will listen when I put them into the car.  Then after we drive away from the house we will head straight to Sullivan, MO to our friends JP and Maria’s house.  Why Sullivan? Because, it’s rural and zombies tend to go to big cities to feed and the country folk tend to have lots of guns.  John also said not to worry about him because he would meet me there.   I think we even talked about what route would be the best way to get there.  It was a very logical conversation.

Can you believe I haven’t had a zombie nightmare since he told me about the plan?!?!  I know you all probably think I’m nuts, but I love this story.  I love it because I can see how John loved me though it.  Silly I know. But he took me kinda seriously, he could have told me there was no such thing as zombies and dismissed me.  The other thing I love is that it reminds me of how well he knows how I am wired – a planner – I like to know where I am going and he gave me a plan – and that’s apparently all I needed!

Sometimes I take mental notes and add them to my plan – for example like buying a 2010 Ford Fiesta….click here and you’ll see why.

Many changes are on the Fall horizon for the Peel family….

• JJ will be in school all day- man I miss him.

• Henry will be going to preschool- JJ never went so preschool is all new to us.

• Emma will be joining George at Kids Day Out once a week.

• My sister Katie and her family moved back home- not only to STL but into our neighborhood!!! AND Tootie, my niece, will be going to Hudson with JJ.

• Kara, whom I have babysat 2 days a week since she was 9 weeks, is starting Kindergarten and won’t be a part of our Mondays and Fridays anymore. Totally bittersweet.

• I started watching my niece, Rosie and it is going so great! Her and Emma are BFFs..check out the picture.

Wow, I didn’t think it was a lot, but writing it out it is ALOT!  My current mental status is Monday -Friday I’m fine, it’s the transition to our weekends I have a hard time with lately.   Weekends we try to balance getting things done with relaxing and I’m not good at the latter.

What do you do on the weekends?  Do you find it hard to balance?

It’s really amazing how much big and small stuff I learn and re-learn and sometimes re-re-learn throughout my day.

Here are today’s random lessons….

• If I prep an “undesirable” food item differently, George will not only try it but may end up liking it.  This was demonstrated with the yellow pepper today at lunch, I chopped instead of sliced and he ate a whole pepper!
• Striving is not what life is all about.  I battle striving in one form or another frequently.  Today, it was in relation to material things and after examining my motives for purchase and our goals for our family, I learned again that I don’t need it.
• If Emma wears her red Polo tennis dress and is in her car seat (so you can’t tell its a dress) people will mistake her for a boy.
• After spending time with God, the things that were overwhelming or I had anxiety about are not bad at all.
• I was finishing eating an ice cream novelty tonight and really wanted another one…and realized I could have another one because I am an adult. Not sure why this was such a revelation.
• I love putting Emma in dresses but now that she is almost crawling, I was bummed thinking that I couldn’t anymore.  But then I did this and it works great…

I’m still being treated for strep from last weekend, but now I have a secondary respiratory infection with the cough, runny nose, etc.  Lovely.

I constantly have a cup of hot tea with honey in my hand and today I realized I had all the ingredients for chicken noodle soup – score.

I got this recipe from Penzeys years and years ago.  I think they actually called it Turkey Noodle Soup because it was in the issue after Thanksgiving.  So use chicken or turkey, regardless, it’s my favorite on a cold day or on a super hot day in the middle of the summer when you have a cold.

The boys love it too.  It’s funny because JJ likes just the broth and Henry likes no broth but all the noodles and veges.  Kinda like Jack Sprat, they end up “licking the platter clean”.

Read more…

I have slowly started to get the itch to start blogging again.  SO why have I been gone so long?

There are a couple reasons.  The first is 4 kids is A LOT going on!  I just got to a point where I had to let go of some things until I felt like I could manage the basics (meaning laundry, dishes, showering).   I needed to feel like I was doing something well, so blogging was one of the things that had to go for a bit.  I’m definitely not there completely yet, but have been getting a glimpse of free time here and there.

The other reason I stopped was a bit more personal and I really can’t go into because it is not just my story to tell.  I would love to tell you about it in person, so ask me sometime.  It’s a story of when life gets hard, but now I can see how it has God’s fingerprints all over it — – which makes it all the better to share.

So I hope you and yours are well and keep checking back!

My life right now.

Too much stuff.

All good things.

Physically. Mentally. Tired.

I’ll start blogging again when I figure out how to slow down the ride.